Finding a smile in every day

I would be flat-out lying my little teacher’s patootie off if I said it was easy to find a reason to smile every day at school. I have already faced many a day where I feel like my face is frozen in that horrible scowl I give my classes who are acting up. Even though my personal promise to smile at least once in every class has not been working so well, I can always follow up on that goal on paper. I have a teacher plan book that I write in every day when I can (*Note to music teachers, especially in General Music: Janet Day’s Music Teacher Plan-It is an absolute Godsend). I have a space for each period to write what we accomplished (always good to see), what we didn’t accomplish (unfortunately that part has been getting longer and longer for some classes), and any other extra notes I want to remember for that particular class. Whenever I have a class that has been especially good, for whatever reason, I put a smiley face in their box. It may be given for something major, like the fact that we got through an entire lesson, actually made music, AND we all enjoyed ourselves. Believe it or not, I have honestly made several smileys for this. It could also be for something seemingly small, like the fact that they really enjoyed singing for once or the kids made me laugh or they stayed focused just a few minutes longer than they had the period before. Whatever the reason, being able to see how many smiles can fill my planner for the day, the week, the month, or the year gives me just enough hope that something good is already happening in my class. And that hope pushes me to make those smiles multiply by the end of my term with this batch of kids.

Unfortunately, I could not write many smiles about today. I blame it on something in the water, a possible full moon, or a strange virus going around, because all of the other teachers had the same bizarre experiences with their classes. But it’s no matter – it just means that I will look for more smiles tomorrow. After all, as a fortune cookie I got once said, “Your smile is a curve that can get a lot of things straight.”

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